


strawberries

by marchpng



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: M/M, bc he's too much of a moron to do it himself, reim has a cold and his bf takes care of him, still modern au, the thrilling continuation of my other breakreim fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 06:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16131644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchpng/pseuds/marchpng
Summary: Break figures, if anything can help with a cold, it's dark chocolate strawberry cake.





	strawberries

**Author's Note:**

> it is i, returning with another sick breakreim fic after a full year. guess what. i got a real bad cold. this was inspired.  
> can be considered a continuation of 'peppermints', so if y'all wanna see break being more of an idiot than he is here, check that out. if this is as bad as i think it is, i blame my cold. enjoy!

Some people call Reim Lunettes a mother hen. Which makes taking care of him when he has a cold ... rather difficult.

 

 

It’s not that the offered help is unappreciated. That’s one of those disgustingly sweet things about Reim, his awful habit of being thankful for things that have been placed on the lowest standard of human politeness. He’s close to crying tears whenever one of his colleagues brings him the papers he would’ve fetched willingly, even if that isn’t his job. He actually _did_ cry that one morning Break cleaned their living room, but to be fair, he only did that because he knew Reim would be too hungover to even look at the wine glasses they left there the evening before. (Plus, that way, he got to eat the remaining pieces of dark chocolate.)

 

 

Either way, Reim is a mother hen, and he hates having others do his work for him. The man could be dying from an undiscovered illness and still try to be the most supportive guy in their group of friends.

 

 

Break doesn’t doubt that he’d reach that goal. His boyfriend could probably reach any kind of goal if he set his mind to it, and if he were a tad bit more evil. But he also doesn’t doubt that he’d die _faster_ from the consequences of that kind of annoying sweetness. Some would say it’s a bit weird, to talk that lowly of something that’s generally considered nice and kind, but some never had to live with Reim Lunettes in the same apartment whenever he gets the flu.

 

 

To Break’s credit, he makes an attempt. He kisses Reim’s cheek, tells him that he’ll prepare a nice cup of peppermint tea for him, and leaves to fulfill said task in the kitchen. But, sure enough, and as expected, as he arrives back at the bedroom door with a hot water bottle under his arm and a cup that says ‘I love you a latte’, he finds it locked. Break sighs. After contemplating his general life choices, and all the good sides of being in a relationship with Reim, he puts the gathered utensils on a nearby cupboard, and knocks softly.

 

 

„Reim, let me in.“

 

 

There’s silence, then an adorable sniffling sound that makes the reason for why this relationship ever started perfectly clear. It sounds as if Reim is buried in a pile of blankets. „You’ll get sick.“

 

 

„Hun, we both know that you probably already infected me. The risk is worse before the symptoms even have the chance to show up, right?“

 

 

More shuffling. „What if I sneeze on you?“

 

 

„Well, that’d at least give me a valid excuse to bail on work!“

 

 

Surprisingly, that doesn’t work. The door stays locked, and Break throws a concerned gaze at the tea he prepared. It’s probably gonna go cold before he manages to persuade Reim into letting him in, and that’s just a total waste of all that effort he put into it. Another sigh, a look at the clock that tells him he’s currently missing his usual breakfast podcast, and he’s back on his way to the kitchen, to figure out a better plan to proceed with.

 

 

 

 

 

...

 

 

 

 

 

Break _does_ end up listening to his podcast, mostly because it’s boring to bake without any sound in the background, but also to satisfy that one part of his brain that’s never able to pay attention to a single thing at once, and would much rather have several influences disturbing it at all times.

 

 

Usually, baking is something he and Reim do together. Break tends to burn the ingredients as soon as he gets the chance to touch the oven, and Reim tends to stress-bake whenever there’s more work to do than he’s used to. When they accompany each other in the kitchen, that balances it out nicely. Plus, Break still remember the very first time they made cookies. It was around Christmas Eve, the very first one he spent with the Lunettes household, and Reim’s mother (still unaware of their relationship back then, but still very much trying to hook them up) had pushed them into the kitchen, and her Irish accent made the task of baking sound a lot more serious than it actually was.

 

 

They repeated it a week after arriving at home, and since then, it’s been tradition.

 

 

Right now, though, Break is baking by himself, and he only manages to not destroy anything because this is something they’ve baked _a lot:_ A dark chocolate strawberry cake, combining everything Reim likes most about sweets -- Dark chocolate and strawberries. And while it might be very sweet, due to an accident with the gigantic sugar cup Break had bought at a garage sale and admittedly, Reim had warned him about, it’s still good. And if we circle back to Reim’s thankfulness for the littlest things, he’ll be happy about it either way.

 

 

In theory. Maybe. If he doesn’t throw it back up again.

 

 

Break waits for the cake to cool down a little, then cuts two slices, and makes his way back to the bedroom door, armed with more tea and a fresh hot water bottle. He already knows that Reim probably smelled the baking process without having to see it, so it’s no surprise that he’s the first to speak up as soon as Break’s close enough.

 

 

„I’m -- I’m not letting you in.“

 

 

„Oh, you aren’t? But I have this delicious cake here! It’s just begging to be devoured by a handsome not-so-much-devil with glasses.“

 

 

After a few beats of silence, there’s no reply, and Break takes that as his cue to break down Reim’s last wall of defence. „Plus, I hear strawberry cake goes amazingly with watching Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Netflix show.“

 

 

Another second, then the door squeaks open.

 

 

 

 

 

...

 

 

 

 

 

Despite popular opinion, Reim is an amazing person to cuddle with. He’s tall, and he’s very thoughtful of where to put his limbs, so whenever Break feels like ignoring every single problem in the world, he can just curl up against his side, tuck his arms around and below a warm chest, and nap. It’s humanly impossible to count the times his boyfriend willingly surrendered his left arm for Break to use it as a pillow, without complaining about the decay of said arm once. You could consider it the one scenario where Break doesn’t only _not_ despise his (lacking) height, but approves of it, instead.

 

 

Right now, though, he’s the human pillow for Reim, and it’s almost better than the opposite.

 

 

People who only know Reim from work probably couldn’t even process an image such as this. He’s the type who’s put together, on top of everything, organized, tidy and neat through and through. There’s never a wrinkle in his suit, never a tie that doesn’t compliment the rest of his outfit, never a single spot on his glasses. The huge array of the folders behind his desk is categorized by the colours of the rainbow. He never misses a due date, and he never makes a mistake that can’t be fixed. When it comes to work, Reim is absolutely perfect.

 

 

But now, when Break tilts his head, his boyfriend’s messy brown hair tickles his cheek, and he can see his red nose, and the absolute exhaustion on his features, and it’s so cute and pure that he really has to stop himself from planting a kiss on his face. Reim isn’t perfect, not at all. He’s sick and miserable, irrationally locked the person he loves out of their shared bedroom, before being lured into opening the door with cake. It’s all Reim, and sometimes, Break is worried he’s incapable of showing how much he loves all of him. For this lazy Saturday, a hand that strokes across Reim’s back steadily, and a cheesy science show about the cosmos will have to do.

 

 

„You know,“ he muses quietly, as the countdown for the next episode begins. „Locking me out of the bedroom means that I would’ve had to sleep on the couch tonight.“

 

 

Reim makes a sound that could qualify as a grumble. „I would’ve let you in sooner or later.“

 

 

A chuckle. „The strawberry cake helped, huh?“ One of Break’s hands travels from Reim’s back to his neck, to gently scratch the line just below his hair. He feels him lean into it, and grins to himself. „How do you feel? A little better?“

 

 

Reim tries to make eye contact, out of pure habit, and Break can’t help but ask himself just how blurry his image must be to the other. His glasses are on the counter next to their bed -- It’s a bit difficult to cuddle with them, and Reim’s told him in the past that they sometimes make his sickness-induced headaches worse, so they’re gonna stay there for a good while.

 

 

„A little.“ And then he flutters his eyelashes without even noticing. Break’s gonna have a heart attack. „Thank you for not burning down the kitchen.“

 

 

Break does kiss him, then, because he can’t resist that cute face, and listens to the expected protest afterwards with a smile on his lips. He already knew the scolding wouldn’t last long, given that he’s quickly shushed as soon as Neil’s voice starts sounding from his laptop speakers again.

 

 

Later that day, Reim _does_ end up throwing up the cake.

 

 

Break doesn’t mind. They can bake another one.

 


End file.
